I WISH I HAD NEVER TAKEN THAT FIRST DOSE

UNTIL four years ago, my life was normal. I was a busy mum working as a support worker for children in their homes. I spent my weekends socialising with my husband Steve, 48. Life was good.

One day in 2018, I was kneeling, sorting clothes out on my bedroom floor with my daughters Jade, 23, and Kaylee, 21. When I stood up, I heard a popping sound and pain seared through my left leg.

I hobbled to the kitchen. I took some paracetamol and hoped it would pass. But the pain just got worse. Around a month later, I couldn’t walk upstairs without crying. Steve took me to A&E, where I had an X-ray and an MRI scan. They gave me some crutches to use, then two weeks later I returned to see the consultant where he told me there was a tumour in my knee. I was stunned.

I had a whole-body bone scan a few days later, which, thankfully, showed it was benign and not a cancerous tumour. I was told to go back to my GP for pain management who, a month after being diagnosed, prescribed me Oramorph — liquid morphine — and signed me off work for six months.

But by six months after the accident, I was falling asleep constantly from the morphine, and the pain just seemed to be getting worse. My doctor prescribed more powerful medication including morphine patches. Despite this, I continued to worsen. The pain was constant and excruciating but the tiredness from the drugs was almost as bad. I couldn’t get off the sofa. I cancelled social gatherings and I stopped leaving the house. My family were shocked. I was nothing like how I was before. My year off work had run out and, reluctantly, I had to resign. I was devastated as I loved my job. My GP sent me for counselling, group therapy and even mirror therapy with a physiotherapist to see if my movements were causing the pain. Nothing has worked.

The drugs made me feel sick and woozy and didn’t seem to dull the pain — yet no one ever suggested they could be worsening the problem. I wanted to wean myself off the drugs but was too scared to do it without guidance. I told my doctor that, in all honesty, I wanted to cut my leg off — that’s how bad the pain is.

Now I can’t work, barely leave the house except for medical appointments and am nothing like the mum, wife and friend I was before. I take 33 painkillers and drugs a day to control the pain and deal with side-effects from some of the medicines.

I wish I’d never taken that first morphine dose as I am still in pain regardless.